Wrap-around article carriers are commonly designed to have ends which are either partially or entirely open. In either case the carriers must be provided with means for preventing the articles from falling out the ends. Beverage cans, for example, are held in place partly by the tension applied by the carrier blank being wrapped very tightly about them and by the engagement of the top and bottom flanges of the cans with the edges of cutouts in the side panels of the carrier through which the flanges of the cans extend. This design is facilitated by the fact that cans have substantially flat tops and bottoms of the same diameter as the body of the can, which allows the carrier blank to be tightly wrapped around the cans.
Problems arise when the articles are not of uniform dimensions, and particularly when the articles are tapered at the bottom so as to cause the bottom portions of the articles to be spaced apart. Wrap-around carriers for use with tapered tubs of the type used as pudding or margarine containers are especially troublesome because of the difficulty in wrapping them tightly enough to prevent movement of the tubs when the package is lifted and carried. Movement of the containers is a problem even when the carrier includes side slots through which flanges on the tops of the tubs protrude, since such an arrangement does not hold the bottom portions of the tubs tightly in place.
Partial end panels extending up from the bottom panel could be provided to function as article retainers, as could corner end gusset panels or flaps. These measures would not be entirely satisfactory, however, because they require extra material to be used, making the carrier more costly to produce, and would not be able to prevent movement of the bottom portions of the container toward and away from each other. Moreover, the bottom of the carton is not stable under such conditions. What is needed is an article spacing or retention means which effectively prevents the spaced bottom portions of articles from moving with respect to each other, and also prevents the bottom portions of end articles in a carrier from moving toward the open end of the carrier.